What would you like to know about us?

Purpose

Team Darwin is all about creating the most effective brand communications for any brief.

But to find that great idea we believe you should start with more ideas. That’s why we crowdsource ideas from our creative community. The best ideas win prizes. We filter the ideas and bring about a dozen to the table.

Then we don’t just pick the one we like the most. We get experts in effectiveness involved early on to help us select and develop the best ones.

Our approach won us two Golds at the IPA Effectiveness Awards.

So Team Darwin is all about the relentless pursuit of the most creative, most effective ideas out there.

People

Team Darwin was started by Greg Phitidis and Nick Radley. Here’s a little bit about them.

Greg Phitidis

Founder, Chief Creative
In his first year in advertising Greg won his first award. On the plane from his native South Africa to pick it up in London, although excited, he felt a bit uneasy. There was no apparent evidence that his campaign for HP (the computers, not the sauce) had actually worked.

After 10 years as Creative Director, working a small agency into the UK’s top 30, and with more awards along the way, Greg’s preoccupation with effectiveness has only grown.

“I believe in the power of a great idea to accelerate a brand’s value. But we all know that ideas that seem good don’t always deliver the results. To me that says that something’s missing in the development phase.”

Greg believes we have to build our latest understanding of how the mind works when interpreting brand communications into the early development of ideas. It turned out that to achieve that required a complete rethink on how an agency works, from top to bottom.

Nick Radley

Founder, Chief Strategist
Nick grew up surrounded by creative directors and photographers and although this didn’t help him gain his two science degrees it did allow him to believe that creative ideas and science are not mutually exclusive.

Nick spent his formative years actively developing ideas through Qual research where he interviewed about 12,000 people in the UK and watched a whole lot more around the world. Working on the best brands at the highest level meant Nick learned fast the value of great insight and strategy.

It was during his time as a planning director though that Nick’s belief in the idea was re-affirmed. “You can have the best insight and strategy in the world but if you haven’t got a great idea to deliver it you end up with advertising that is clumsy at best, second rate at worst.” What’s more, Nick realised how crucial the creative development phase was in shaping that idea. He believes that all too often really useful insight and research feedback is not incorporated until later in the process (if at all) – when the idea has already been ‘set’.

“The best time for the ‘science’ and the idea to meet are early on and it shouldn’t just involve agency personnel, it should involve neuroscientists, digital experts and many more”.

To get this to happen without bias or the need to ‘sell the idea to the client’ requires a re-think in the way that clients get their campaign ideas.

The result of both their thinking is Team Darwin.

Charlie

CFO (Chief Flapping Officer)
This chap is a highly evolved member of the team. You can tell by his hat. He joined us almost as soon as we took the name Team Darwin, as finches were some of the first creatures in which Mr. Darwin observed the processes of evolution.

Culture

Here are five simple words by which we live.

Open

We’re great believers in collaboration and we’re totally transparent in everything we do.

Curious

We’re unendingly fascinated by different businesses, what works and what doesn’t.

Fun

Sounds a bit unbusinessy perhaps, but it’s important that we enjoy our work, and we want you to enjoy your time with us too.